MICHAEL MCEVOY was appointed to a six-year term as BC’s Information and Privacy Commissioner by unanimous motion of the Legislative Assembly in 2018.
Immediately prior to his appointment he helped lead the Information Commissioner’s Office of the United Kingdom’s investigation into Cambridge Analytica and Facebook.
Since his appointment, Commissioner McEvoy has led a series of investigations aimed at strengthening access to information and protection of privacy, ranging from a ground-breaking report on how BC’s political parties collect and use the personal information of BC voters to an examination of the massive health data breach by LifeLabs. He also oversees the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s (OIPC) intensive efforts to educate BC organizations about their privacy obligations under the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA), including the PrivacyRight program.
Commissioner McEvoy is recognized as a national and international leader in the privacy authority community. With the global flow of trade and data requiring privacy regulators to closely cooperate, Commissioner McEvoy chairs the governing committee of the Asia Pacific Privacy Authorities (APPA), which brings privacy and data protection regulators together across the Asia Pacific region.
Commissioner McEvoy joined the OIPC in 2007, adjudicating more than 50 inquiries under provincial access and privacy law before his appointment as Deputy Commissioner in 2013. He was a public school trustee for 12 years, a role that included two terms as President of the British Columbia School Trustees' Association and one as President of the Canadian School Boards' Association. He has chaired Greater Victoria’s United Way campaign and presently serves on the board of the Victoria Conservatory of Music.
Commissioner McEvoy earned a Juris Doctorate from the University of Manitoba in 1985 and a Bachelor of Arts in 1980 from the University of Winnipeg. He has been a member of the Law Society of British Columbia since 1986. He is married with two daughters and is a charter member of the Victoria Grey Leafs' old-timer hockey team.